Now that you’ve probably burned through the lists of historians, innovators, and food-writers to follow this year, we’re bringing it back home to the Smithsonian. As always, the Mall is cooking up some fascinating, crazy, and sometimes grotesque stuff for 2012. Bookmark these people and projects to keep up with this year:

Nicholas Pyenson: Pyenson studies and curates fossils of marine mammals. Get a feel for what is going on inside his lab and follow his team into the field—fresh from an expedition in Chile—at his blog, Pyenson Lab.

Postal Museum: Time for a pop quiz: A “hamper dumper” is:

a) machine in postal processing

b) bin of misprint stamps

c) failed mail vehicle

d) philatelic tool.

If you know the answer, you should be following the Postal Museum (@postalmuseum) for their daily #PostalQuiz and other philatelic factoids.

Biodiversity Heritage Library: As part of the Biodiversity Heritage Library consortium, the Smithsonian Libraries collects and digitizes biodiversity research for open online access—essentially, a bio-wiki. Check out @biodivlibrary for the species of the day: plants that eat worms, albino penguins and other bizarre creatures you never knew existed.

Archives of American Art Pinterest: The American Art Pinterest lets you browse the archives and “pin” the images you like to your virtual board. Mix and match from collections like “facial hair of note” and “ain’t no party like an artist’s party.”

Book Dragon: The Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program’s Book Dragon is the pet project of former APA Media Arts Consultant Terry Hong, featuring reviews of “books for the multi-cultural reader.” Hong highlights literature for kids and adults alike that speaks to the Asian American experience. Follow her at @SIBookDragon.

Smithsonian Vids: For a moving view of the Institution, follow @SmithsonianVids. Meet a scientist studying frog-eating bats, or get a video tour of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings from Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart.

Smithsonian Marine Station: This Natural History Museum field station, located in Fort Pierce, Florida, tweets news updates and photos from the field (er, coral reef) @SmithsonianSMS. Plus, there’s #followfriday trivia every week.

Field Book Project: Also, from the Natural History Museum and the Smithsonian Institution Archives check out this blog, where researchers post updates on their initiative to compile an online database of field books and journals documenting biodiversity research. Besides progress updates, you’ll also find excerpts of century-old field notes from explorers, birdwatchers and scientists (including lots of fun, old-timey sketches) and learn a lot more than you ever thought there was to know about indices.

Encyclopedia of Life: Take your best shot and enter the picture in the Smithsonian’s Encyclopedia of Life Flickr photo contest. The bi-weekly contest could be (and has been) any theme from “backyard life” to “sexual dimorphism.” Even if you don’t enter, be sure to browse the entries for gems like this.

And of course, if you’re not following them already, the museums are always Tweeting up a storm. Here’s the checklist:

American Indian Museum: @SmithsonianNMAI

National Portrait Gallery: @npg

American Art Museum: @americanart

Anacostia Community Museum: @anacostiamuseum

American History Museum: @amhistorymuseum

Air and Space Museum: @airandspace

Museum of Natural History: @NMNH

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden: @hirshhorn

Freer and Sackler Galleries: @FreerSackler

Museum of African Art: @NMAfA

National Zoo: @NationalZoo

Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum: @cooperhewitt

Smithsonian: @Smithsonian

Martha Stewart will give a presentation on entertaining in the home and sign copies of her latest book. Image courtesy of the Susan Magrino Agency.

Nearly 30 years ago, a caterer named Martha Stewart published her first cookbook, Entertaining. The bestseller became the template for hosting get-togethers of all kinds—cocktail parties to clam bakes, omelette brunches to Chinese banquets, Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas open houses, even at-home weddings. Needless to say, it launched Stewart’s career.

This Thursday night (7 p.m. at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C.), Marc Pachter, interim director of the National Museum of American History, will be sitting down with the author, entrepreneur, magazine publisher, television host and all-around doyenne of domesticity to discuss the evolution of American domestic culture and her profound impact on it. The program, hosted by the Smithsonian Associates, is in timing with the recent release of her latest book, Martha’s Entertaining: A Year of Celebrations—an update to her inaugural book. I spoke with Stewart, by phone, in advance of the event:

First of all, how would you describe the role you have played in the evolution of American domestic culture?

It wasn’t planned, but what’s happened, what actually occurred, was that the role of the champion of the homekeeping arts became mine. And, pleasantly, so. It has been wonderful for the last 30 years to be considered a teacher, a mentor and an important force in promoting the domestic arts as an art form rather than a chore.

What is the most dramatic way in which domestic culture has changed in America in the last three decades?

I think really what’s happened is that so many people are taking pride in their homes, more pride than they had before. I think what we have done is make the home more important in terms of a place where you can express yourself personally, where you can entertain, where you can decorate, where you can garden with style and with knowledge. And, we have been providers of the style, of the knowledge, of the information and the inspiration.

You have had such a huge impact on domestic culture—to the point that if someone is really crafty and skilled at entertaining and decorating, she is often called a “Martha Stewart.” To you, what does it mean to be a “Martha Stewart?”

Well, it means someone who is interested in actually enjoying life in a more intellectual way. Intellectual, not hoighty-toighty, but in a celebratory way.

In your new book Martha’s Entertaining, you have a section devoted to breakfast trays. And, you admit that the idea of breakfast served in bed is old fashioned. But, I wonder, are there any other domestic traditions you mourn the loss of?

There are kind of a lot of them. One of them is the family meal. Sitting down at the table for the family dinner every night has really become a thing of the past. Most homes do not have that. I think people don’t even realize how good it was. We always sat down. There were eight of us, and we sat down. It took awhile. It took 18 years for there to be eight of us. My mom had babies over a period of 18 years. But when we all sat down, we talked. We had a conversation. The parents actually led the conversation. And, I don’t remember it being anything but a pleasant experience. I am sure there were arguments and stuff, but I don’t remember it as anything but interesting. That doesn’t exist anymore, because of school schedules, work schedules, travel schedules, sports schedules. Sports teams and the avid nature of high school sports really kind of took away from all of that.

When does sticking to tradition become a bad thing?

If it becomes boring. If it becomes rote. If it becomes totally unchanged. I mean, you have to evolve. Just as technology has evolved, traditions evolve. I think when you look through the pages of the new entertaining book, you can see big elements of change in my style. I certainly change from year to year over the 30 years. My Christmas now looks pretty different from what it used to look like, but there are still inklings of the old traditions within the new.

In your new book, you say, “entertaining guests is not really about ‘shortcuts.’” But pulling off a multi-course meal or a cocktail party requires a certain level of efficiency. As a career woman, isn’t there a shortcut that you would endorse?

Oh, I mean, you learn the shortcuts along the way. I used to bake all my bread. I don’t bake my bread anymore, unless I am trying out bread recipes. I know where to get the very, very best breads. I also am able to, thank heavens, have help now. When I wrote the first Entertaining book, I didn’t have any help. Now, I have much more help.

At the event, Martha Stewart will also be giving a presentation on entertaining in the home and signing copies of Martha’s Entertaining. For ticket information, visit the Smithsonian Associates’ website.

Deere & Company donated a John Deere Model D Tractor to the National Museum of American History in 1966. Image courtesy of the National Museum of American History.

Unless, like my husband, you hail from a place like Nebraska, where it is common knowledge that Farmall tractors are candy apple red, New Hollands’ are royal blue and Allis-Chalmers’ are orange, I suspect that John Deere tractors, with their kelly green bodies and bright yellow hubcaps, are the only ones that are instantly recognizable.

You know the machine, because the John Deere company has become a world leader in the manufacturing of agricultural and landscaping equipment. But how much do you know about John Deere, the man?

For starters, today is the anniversary of his birth—on February 7, 1804, in Rutland, Vermont. Deere was raised in Middlebury, Vermont, about 30 miles to the north of Rutland. In the mid-1820s, after a four-year blacksmithing apprenticeship, he began outfitting farmers with hay forks and shovels. When business got rough in the mid-1830s, he set out for the Midwest, ultimately landing in Grand Detour, Illinois. There, he quickly discovered that pioneer farmers were struggling to cut through the area’s thick soil with the cast-iron plows they had brought from the sandy-soiled East. So, he introduced a solution: a steel plow. According to the National Museum of American History, which has Deere’s original (pictured below) in its collection, the steel plow made vast areas of the Midwest agriculturally viable.

John Deere's steel plow revolutionized farming in the Midwest. Image courtesy of the National Museum of American History.

Deere was churning out 1,000 plows a year by 1848, constantly improving his design. He once said, “I will never put my name on a product that does not have in it the best that is in me.” And, in 1868, he incorporated as Deere & Company. Deere died in 1886, at the age of 82, the business carried on under his son Charles’ direction, followed by William Butterworth, Charles’s son-in law, and then Charles Deere Wiman, a great-grandson of John Deere.

The John Deere Model D, the first tractor the company built, marketed and named after the innovative blacksmith, was added to the product line in 1923. One (pictured above) of the two-ton, 15 horsepower machines, which cost about $1,000 by the mid-1920s, is also among the treasures at the National Museum of American History.

“Tractors, in general, are really important inventions and helped make the green revolution—the era from 1920 to 1940 when agricultural productivity really took off—possible. The John Deere Model D was very popular in the early wave of internal combustion tractors,” says Peter Liebhold, chair and curator of the Division of Work and Industry at the National Museum of American History. “The company continues to be very important in terms of innovation in agricultural equipment. Today, John Deere continues to innovate with developments in applying GPS to make precision farming a reality.”

President-elect John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy. Photograph by Richard Avedon. Courtesy of National Museum of American History.

Acclaimed fashion and portrait photographer Richard Avedon brought his portable studio to the Kennedys’ Palm Beach, Florida-compound on January 3, 1961, to take some photos for Harper’s Bazaar and LOOK magazines. The atmosphere in the oceanfront home was hectic, or so I’ve read in accounts of the event. The president-elect was dictating memos to his secretary in between clicks of the camera. A hair stylist was sculpting Jacqueline Kennedy’s brunette bob, and dress makers were pinning an Oleg Cassini dress that Jackie would wear just a couple weeks later at a pre-inaugural concert.

The resulting pictures were the only known formal photographs of the Kennedys taken between John’s election and inauguration. Six of the images appeared in the February 1961 issue of Harper’s Bazaar, and then they remained largely unseen. Richard Avedon donated them, among other photographs, to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, in 1966. It wasn’t until 2007, when Shannon Thomas Perich, an associate curator of the photographic history collection at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, published the collection in her book The Kennedys: Portrait of a Family that they were again in the public eye. Thanks to the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES), they have since traveled around the country. Now, fifty years after they were taken, the portraits have returned to the American History Museum, where they are on display through February 28.

View a photo gallery of more of these images

The exhibition has an intimate feel to it, which is amplified by its inclusion of contact sheets of the unedited, outtakes of Avedon’s work that day. One particular sheet shows 12 photos, some of John alone and others with Jackie, that allude to the surrounding commotion. The president-elect is laughing in a couple. In another, his eyes are closed, and a few of the couple appear as though they are in mid-conversation. Yet, these more informal portraits stand in contrast to a seated image of John and Jackie, both fully attentive to the camera, hanging nearby. (This portrait, above left, graces the cover of Perich’s book.)

Avedon, who photographed famous cultural figures, performers, writers and leaders from the 1950s to his death in 2004, was at the peak of his career at the time. The focus Avedon was able to capture in John and Jackie’s faces in the portrait above, despite all the action bustling around them, is testament to his craft.

“The white, or gray, background hides the details of the house that would compete for visual attention. There is no surrounding context to provide visual clues as to how one should interpret the photograph, so this forces the viewer’s attention to the sitter,” says Perich. “Avedon further controls this pairing down of visual information by printing in a graphic, contrasty way. There are few middle-tone grays, creating stark blacks and whites. The printing places bright emphasis on their hands and faces.” (Avedon’s editing becomes even more clear when the negative and the final print are compared side-by-side in the exhibition.)

Perich says that Avedon’s intent was to create photographs that didn’t just flatter the president-elect, but also revealed some deeper insight into what might make him a worthy president. However, in a 1961 Newsweek article, Avedon admits that that all-telling photograph eluded him. “What his photographs do reveal,” adds Perich, “is how much [Kennedy] enjoyed being with Caroline; it’s easy to see the joy in his face.”

The gallery space itself—situated between the American History Museum’s exhibition, “Communities in a Changing Nation” and the “First Ladies” exhibition—provides some notable context, says Perich. Thoughts of civil rights, more specifically Kennedy’s push for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, may linger with visitors as they exit the preceding exhibition, and encounter the photograph of John holding his three-year-old daughter Caroline in his lap. In the next gallery, you can hear the recording of Michelle Obama talking about Jackie Kennedy’s grace and style, while admiring the image of Jackie cradling the 5 1/2 week-old John Jr.

“For here is this beautiful, intriguing, dynamic family, and we know what’s going to happen to them,” says Perich. “Thoughts about Jackie’s time as First Lady and Kennedy’s political career swirl around to create a moment that puts them into a historical context and explains why they continue to be relevant.”

Courtesy of National Postal Museum.

There is a scene in A Hard Day’s Night, the 1964 mockumentary about the Beatles (starring the Beatles), when John Lennon leaves a band practice with a dancing girl on his arm. His manager asks where he is going, and the Brit quips, “She’s gonna show me her stamp collection.”

His comment was facetious, of course. But that’s not to say that Lennon, who was murdered 30 years ago today, wouldn’t have found a stamp collection appealing. (Seriously.) After all, the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum has a rare album of Lennon’s—his boyhood stamp album.

Former curator of philately Wilson Hulme first read about the existence of the album in May 2005. The then-owner Stanley Gibbons Ltd., a London stamp and autograph dealer, was looking to sell it, and the National Postal Museum jumped on it. Stanley Parkes, an older cousin of Lennon’s, was able to verify that it was the hardcover Mercury stamp album that he started and later gave to John to continue.

Kids tend to collect stamps between the ages of 7 and 12, says Cheryl Ganz, chief curator of philately at the museum. According to Parkes, Lennon took interest for a few years starting at age 9, when he was living with his Aunt Mimi and her husband George in Liverpool. In the inside, he half-erased Parkes’ name and inscribed his own with his address. Though it is impossible to tell which stamps Lennon added to Parkes’ collection, the album contains 565, organized by country.

Courtesy of National Postal Museum.

“Although there is not a rare stamp in there, I have to say I just find an incredible charm to it,” says Ganz, who especially likes the beards Lennon doodled over pictures of Queen Victoria and King George VI (right) on the title page. “We took it because the story there is much bigger. It’s about an emerging childhood of someone who turns out to be more or less a creative genius.”

The museum has made it a point to acquire artifacts related to famous stamp collectors. Among its collection are items once owned by Holocaust survivor Simon Wiesenthal, actor Yul Brynner, president Franklin Roosevelt, violinist Jascha Heifetz and photographer Ansel Adams. But, as Smithsonian writer Owen Edwards suggests, the discovery that Lennon collected brings a certain cool factor to the hobby.

The stamp album was put on display in the fall 2005 in the exhibition, “John Lennon: The Lost Album” to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the musician’s birth, on October 9, 1940. The response was overwhelming. “We had the longest lines we’ve ever had to get into the museum to see something,” says Ganz. “I think it was a combination of things. For some people, it was a nostalgia, bringing back their own youth. For other people, it was all their great music and when it played in important moments in their lives. When a family came into the museum, it was about the parents telling their kids, ‘gosh, let me tell you about the first time I heard one of their songs, or the first time I saw them on TV, or which one I had a crush on.’ It triggers thoughts and moments that you want to share.”

The album is not currently on display at the museum but can be paged through on this web exhibition.

Jimi Hendrix's patchwork coat. Photo by Katherine Fogden

Halloween is two days away—costume parties perhaps even sooner—and if you are anything like me, you are probably Googling “easy costume ideas” right about now. Well, look no further. Here, Smithsonian.com’s Around The Mall team brings you ten clever (if we do say so ourselves!) costume ideas inspired by artifacts and artworks we found in the Smithsonian Institution’s collections.

1. Carol Burnett’s Curtain Rod Dress

We saw it in the collections and just couldn’t resist it. Carol Burnett lampooned the movie Gone With the Wind in a 1976 episode of her weekly sketch comedy show. When her character, Miss Starlett, strutted her stuff on the small screen in a dress obviously made from the living room curtains—with the curtain rod still in place—it was side-splitting television magic, and the costume now calls the American History Museum home. If you have a Southern belle-ish dress with a full skirt, you’re halfway to completing this look. For the rod, I suggest finding something long and lightweight, like a wrapping paper tube or two securely taped together. Since this bit will be covered with fabric, no one would be the wiser and you’re not bearing the weight of an actual metal rod all night. Just attach some finials to either end and the whole curtain rod idea should come across loud and clear. Drape the rod with green fabric, adorn with gold fringe, cinch with cording at the waist, and you’re good to go. How you actually get the rod to stay on your person is going to be a trick. Personally, I’m a proponent of duct tape. And since you have all that loose fabric hanging around, a well-done duct tape job can be easily masked from critical eyes.  – Jesse Rhodes

2. Hirshhorn Museum

Why dress up as a famous person for Halloween when you can go as an entire building? And not just any old building, but one of the most iconic and unique in the entire Smithsonian Institution. The donut-shaped Hirshhorn Museum can easily be replicated by wearing an inner tube painted gray, a gray bodysuit with strategically placed G.I. Joe’s as the sculptures in the museum’s sculpture garden and—if you really want to go all out—a Tupperware bowl over your head (or attach an inflated blue balloon to a hat) to serve as the Hirshhorn Bubble, the proposed new pavilion that would fill the museum’s central courtyard. Dressing as the museum is also the perfect excuse to stay out “After Hours.”    - Ryan Reed

3. Blue Man Group

Though the “Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers” exhibition that encompassed an entire floor of the Hirshhorn closed over a month ago, I can’t resist its allure for the theme of my abstract costume. Klein created his own intense shade of my favorite color (blue), titled International Klein Blue (IKB), and I’ve *so* got to respect that. So in Klein’s honor I will paint myself from head to toe in IKB, making sure to leave a small, uncovered space on his lower back. Lord knows, I don’t want to end up like Jill Masterson!   – Jeff Campagna

4. Jimi Hendrix

Draw some inspiration from the late rock guitarist, whose iconic patchwork coat is now hanging in the halls of the American Indian Museum. Collect a bunch of old clothes you don’t want anymore, and sew (or even staple if it’s only for one night!) squares of different colored fabrics together. Throw it over your (preferably bare) shoulders, grab any old guitar you can find, tease out your hair and pile on whatever old jewelry you can get your hands on. Rock out periodically throughout the evening.   – Jess Righthand

5. A Boy Scout

Use Norman Rockwell’s painting “Spirit of America,” on display in “Telling Stories: Norman Rockwell from the Collections of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg” at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, as a model for how to dress like a Boy Scout. It would be best to wear a campaign hat, a khaki shirt and shorts, tall socks and a neckerchief. If you don’t have a bolo tie, make do with a brooch or hair tie. An external frame backpack (if you have one in the basement) completes the look. Oh, and occasionally give the scouts honor sign by holding your right hand up and touching your pinky finger to your thumb.    - Megan Gambino

6. Michelle Obama

Approximate the first lady’s inaugural gown, on display at the National Museum of American History, by decorating a white sheet with glitter and sequins and then draping it over one shoulder. For a slightly higher-brow approach, look for a white dress at a thrift store, cut out one shoulder and then decorate at will. If the inaugural gown thing isn’t working, you could always go with the bright dress and belted sweater combination that the first lady has made her signature look. Top it off with an American flag pin, wave a lot, and people will know exactly who you are.    - Jess Righthand

7. A Jellyfish

It is hard to miss the enormous model of a Lion’s mane jellyfish in the National Museum of Natural History’s Sant Ocean Hall—and it will be hard to miss YOU, even in a bustling costume party, if you dress like the creature. All you need to do is carry a clear umbrella with streamers dangling from it and perhaps a red shirt and white sweat pants. With the umbrella, you are prepared for the elements; though, if rain is in the forecast, I suggest substituting something more water-resistant, like tinsel, for the streamers.    - Megan Gambino

8. The Fonz

Ayyy, Halloween costumes don’t get much easier than this; however the key component is finding a leather jacket, like the one in the American History Museum’s collections once worn by Henry Winkler, a.k.a Arthur “The Fonz” Fonzarelli, on the sitcom Happy Days. Aside from that, all you need are jeans, a white V-neck T-shirt, leather boots and hair styled into a pompadour. And if you somehow master the knack of turning on a jukebox by banging on it with your fist, you totally have this costume mastered.    - Jesse Rhodes

9. Abel the Monkey

This little guy helped to pave the way for human explorations in space. Strapped into a specially designed fiberglass cradle that allowed scientists to monitor the rhesus monkey during his space flight. Sadly, he didn’t survive the voyage, but, through the wonders of taxidermy, you can see him at the Air and Space Museum. If you’re crafty enough to cobble together your own monkey suit—or live near a costume rental place—you can complete the Abel “look” with a straight jacket and a white polo helmet. Or you can get really fancy schmancy and craft a more faithful re-creation of his body armor. Cardboard and duct tape anyone?    - Jesse Rhodes

10. And last but certainly not least:

The perfect costume for you and six of your laziest (or possibly most pretentious) friends: dress as Lawrence Weiner’s “A RUBBER BALL THROWN ON THE SEA.” The conceptual piece, on display on a length of wall in the Hirshhorn, is bold and blue and is easy enough to recreate on a collection of white T-shirts. A word to the wise: don’t stray too far from members of your work of art or else you’ll just be “that guy wearing the ‘ball’ shirt.”   – Jamie Simon

If none of these strike your fancy, our friends at the Archives of American Art came up with a few ideas of their own.

And the 2010 People's Design Award goes to...the Braille Alphabet Bracelet. Photo courtesy of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum.

Last night, at its 11th annual National Design Awards gala in New York City, the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum announced this year’s People’s Design Award winner. Can I get a drum roll please?

After over one hundred designs were nominated and thousands of votes were cast, the Braille Alphabet Bracelet prevailed as the public’s favorite. Designed by Leslie Ligon of At First Sight Braille Jewelry, the bracelet has the complete Braille alphabet on the outside and the print alphabet on the inside.

Ligon, whose son is blind, created the jewelry piece to increase the awareness of Braille literacy, the statistics of which are rather shocking. Only 10 percent of the blind population is Braille literate, and yet literacy could be the answer to the high unemployment rate, hovering around 70 percent, among the blind. After all, at least 90 percent of employed, legally blind individuals can read and write Braille. To back the bracelet’s statement, Ligon donates a percentage of the profits to Braille literacy organizations, such as National Braille Press and BrailleInk.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, the People’s Design Award winner seems to parley the priorities of today’s consumer. The voters’ social awareness is reflected in other nominees, including the EyeWriter communication device, the SHINEON low-cost LED lamp, the SODIS water disinfecting method, the five-dollar-per-square-foot house and the touch signalization tiles that help blind people at crosswalks.

“I’m delighted that the public has chose to honor the Braille Alpahabet Bracelet, which looks good, communicates without a glance and feels great too!” said Bill Moggridge, director of the museum.

Tim Gunn, of Project Runway fame, will be speaking at the Teen Design Fair. Photo by Richard Patterson. Courtesy of Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum.

Tonight more than 400 New York City high school students interested in pursuing careers in fashion, architecture and industrial, interior and graphic design will gather at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum’s Teen Design Fair in Manhattan. The fair, which the museum has hosted annually since 2007, offers teens the opportunity to meet top designers and learn about programs and scholarships offered at design colleges across the country.

Tim Gunn, Chief Creative Officer at Liz Claiborne Inc. and co-host of Lifetime TV’s Project Runway, will deliver the event’s keynote address. He has spoken at the last few fairs (hear his speech from last year here), and said, in a phone interview, as long as he is invited, he will keep coming. Gunn is committed to mentoring aspiring students and at Parsons The New School of Design, where he was a faculty member and administrator for 24 years, and in the Project Runway work room, he has seen such promise in the new generation of emerging designers. ”They have a sincere passion for designing,” he says. “They have a vision, and they want to make their mark on the world.”

Fashion designer Cynthia Rowley, chief Google webmaster and logo designer Dennis Hwang, New Yorker and New York Times illustrator Maira Kalman, architect Stephen Kieran, comic book illustrator Phil Jimenez and interior designer William Sofield, among others, will be in attendance to meet with students.

The Teen Design Fair is part of the museum’s National Design Week (October 9-17) programming, taking place in New York City and around the country. Added bonus: Admission to the Cooper-Hewitt is free for the week. Take advantage!

John Franklin, director of partnerships and international programs at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, recently visited historic sites in Central Florida. Photo courtesy of flickr user Steve Snodgrass.

“I first heard about the Moores of Mims in the song,” says John Franklin, director of partnerships and international programs at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

It seems I hear Harry Moore
from the earth his voice still cries:
“No bomb can kill the dreams I hold, for freedom never dies.
Freedom never dies, I say. Freedom never dies.
No bomb can kill the dreams I hold for freedom never dies.”

The “Ballad of Harry T. Moore,” as it’s called, was written by poet Langston Hughes and adapted into a song by Sweet Honey in the Rock, the African-American a capella group founded in 1973 by former Smithsonian Folklife Festival participant and Smithsonian Folkways artist Bernice Johnson Reagon. A stirring spiritual, it tells the story of Harry Moore, a civil rights leader and NAACP official who was killed with his wife Harriette when their home was bombed Christmas night 1951.

At the end of September, Franklin visited the “little cottage” of the song, the Moores’ gravesites and the Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Cultural Complex in Mims, Florida. “To go to the place of the bombing, with an excellent new exhibition situating the Moores in the larger context of Florida and U.S. history, was a moving experience,” he says.

His visit to Mims was part of a larger four-day research trip to Central Florida. In Orlando, Eatonville, Sanford, New Smyrna, Mims, Bartow, St. Petersburg, Tampa, Clearwater and Bradenton, Franklin was given guided tours of museums and historic sites, such as author and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston’s home and the L.B. Brown House, a home on the National Register of Historic Places that was built and owned by a former slave. All the while, he kept in mind how the stories of African Americans like Harry Moore could be incorporated into the National Museum of African American History and Culture, opening on the National Mall in 2015.

“We really need to represent the different regions of the United States and the different experiences of each region,” Franklin told FloridaToday.com. Each trip, he says, is an opportunity to learn.

In July 2009, he traveled around Northern Florida, particularly Jacksonville and Tallahassee, with Althemese Barnes, director of the Riley House in Tallahassee. This time around, the Florida African American Heritage Preservation Network selected the sites Franklin visited. “We are interested in networks and institutions in each state of the U.S,” says the curator, who is currently working with groups in Virginia, Louisiana and across New England.

]]> http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/aroundthemall/2010/10/learning-about-the-moores-of-mims-with-nmaahc-curator-john-franklin/feed/ 1 http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/aroundthemall/2010/09/the-rivals-premieres-on-the-smithsonian-channel/ http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/aroundthemall/2010/09/the-rivals-premieres-on-the-smithsonian-channel/#comments Fri, 10 Sep 2010 15:14:00 +0000 Megan Gambino http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/aroundthemall/?p=13904

Kids are back to school. Cravings for homemade chili and freshly picked apples kick in. And across the country, football season officially begins. (If you haven’t seen high school and college players, strengthened by arduous two-a-days, suiting up for their season openers, you’ve surely witnessed office mates tinkering with their fantasy football teams, right?)

In due tribute to the excitement of another season of pep rallies and Friday night games under the lights, the Smithsonian Channel premieres “The Rivals” this Saturday, September 11, at 9 p.m. The documentary, directed by Kirk Wolfinger, follows two high school football teams from Western Maine, both hell-bent on winning the state championship, through their 2007 season.

The football field is just about the only place where the Falcons of Mountain Valley High School in Rumford, Maine, and the Capers of Cape Elizabeth High School in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, are evenly matched. Rumford is a blue-collar town struggling to be supported by a paper mill in town, while Cape Elizabeth is a white-collar town teeming with successful doctors and lawyers. The Mountain Valley Falcons play on a worn field in the shadow of the mill’s smokestacks, and the Capers have a new turf field funded by their Booster Club. Plain and simple, it is the “haves” versus the “have nots.” And, as the narrator of the film points out, football, in this case, is more than just a game. It is a clash of cultures.

But the Mountain Valley Falcons do have experience on their side. Coach Jim Aylward has led them to six conference titles and two state championships during his long tenure. Ninety miles south of Rumford, Coach Aaron Filieo, three years into establishing a football program at Cape Elizabeth High School, is just trying to make a name for his Capers.

The film transported my husband and I back to our high school sports days, reminding us of rivalries, coaching styles, spaghetti dinners and, most of all, the sense of community that sports create. ”When you’re carrying the ball,” Coach Aylward tells his players, “you’re carrying it for the whole town.”

Though particularly poignant to former athletes, the story, with its life lessons of respect, pride and perseverance, has been enjoyed by a wide audience. On the independent film festival circuit, “The Rivals” has won the Audience Choice Award at the 2010 Woods Hole Festival, Best Picture at the 2010 Phoenix Film Festival and Best Documentary at the 2009 Los Angeles Reel Film Festival.

John Isner's racket, not yet photographed, will join this circa-1975 Head racket used by Arthur Ashe at Wimbledon and the Davis Cup. Photo courtesy of Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

As the first rounds of the U.S. Open get underway in New York City, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History announces its acquisition of an exciting piece of tennis history—John Isner’s tennis racket from the longest match ever played.

The first-round standoff between 23rd-seed Isner and Frenchman Nicolas Mahut at Wimbledon this past June lasted a grueling 11 hours and 5 minutes over three days before Isner clinched a win in the fifth set.  Not surprisingly, the match smashed the previous record for length, 6 hours and 33 minutes set at the 2004 French Open. (The fifth set alone lasted over eight hours!) And other records were set in the process. The match is now the longest in terms of games played (183). Isner holds the record for number of aces served in a Wimbledon match (113), and Mahut holds the bittersweet record for most games won in a match by a losing player (91).

A little worse for the wear, Isner went on to lose to Thiemo de Bakker in the second round of the tournament. But his performance helped boost his ranking to 18th in the world. Currently, he is ranked 19th, with Andy Roddick being the only American player bettering his standing.

Discussions between the museum and Isner’s agents began less than a week after the tournament, and though there are no set plans for displaying the racket, Jane Rogers, associate curator of the museum’s division of culture and the arts, hopes that in the future it might help visitors appreciate the “sheer power of breaking such a record and the two players’ ability to play such a long match.” Over the 11 epic hours, the players endured 2,198 strokes (489 of which were backhands), according to ESPN.

The museum’s sports collection includes tennis rackets used by tennis great Arthur Ashe, the first African-American to win a Grand Slam event, and Chris Evert, one of the top female tennis players of the 1970s and ’80s. But, says Rogers, Isner’s racket, one of four used during the match, “adds a contemporary racket, which we have been lacking.”

Painting of Tule Lake, by Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani, who interned at Tule Lake in California. Collection of Hiroshi Sakai Estate and Family. Photo by Terry Heffernan.

Among the more than 120 works of art made by Japanese-American internees during World War II featured in the Renwick Gallery’s “The Art of Gaman” exhibit is an eerie painting of Tule Lake. In the background stands Castle Rock, its beauty in bold contrast to the austerity of the Northern California internment camp’s seemingly endless row of barracks.

Looking at the painting, one can’t help but wonder about the artist, his experience at the camp and the emotions engrained in the landscape. Fortunately, The Cats of Mirikitani, a 2006 documentary about the artist, 90-year-old Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani, offers some insight. The Renwick Gallery is screening it Sunday, August 29, at 2 p.m.

Linda Hattendorf, a New York-based producer and director of documentaries, befriended Jimmy Mirikitani in 2001. Homeless, he worked on his art—drawings of cats, internment camps and atomic bombs— under the awning of a grocery store near Hattendorf’s SoHo apartment. After 9/11, the smoke and dust took a toll on the artist’s health and Hattendorf invited him into her home. She learned the man’s life story. He was born in Sacramento in 1920, raised in Hiroshima, Japan, and then returned to the United States at age 18 to pursue a career in art. Soon after, he was interned at Tule Lake. Eventually released, he ended up in New York City in the early 1950s, where he became a live-in cook for a resident of Park Avenue. When his employer passed away in the late 1980s, Mirikitani was left jobless and homeless. He sold his artwork to survive.

The Cats of Mirikitani tells the story of Jimmy Mirikitani and how, with the help of Hattendorf, he comes to terms with his past and lands on his feet, living in an assisted-living retirement center. The New York Times described the 2006 Audience Award Winner at the Tribeca Film Festival as “a brief but satisfying look at a defiantly self-sufficient life,” and New York Magazine declared it “a profoundly gripping film, with a cumulative impact that may well wipe you out.”

Hattendorf and co-producer Masa Yoshikawa will be in attendance at the Renwick Gallery on Sunday and partake in a question-and-answer session following the screening. Be sure to check out Mirikitani’s painting of Tule Lake and the rest of the “Art of Gaman” exhibit, open through January 30.

The Red Hat Society has donated its founder's original red hat and a purple boa to the American History Museum. Photo courtesy of the Museum.

“When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple / With a red hat which doesn’t go and doesn’t suit me.”

- “Warning,” a poem by Jenny Joseph

When Sue Ellen Cooper of Tucson, Arizona, first read this line of poetry, she connected with it. She had a bright red fedora of her own, which she had purchased at a local thrift shop, and appreciated the poem’s message: have fun growing old. Cooper gave a red hat and a copy of the poem to a friend for her birthday. She gave the same to other friends, and soon enough it became her signature gift.

A clan of red hatters formed and to cement their sisterhood, they gathered, in 1998, for a tea party in Fullerton, California. They even wore purple dresses to bring Jenny Joseph’s poem fully to life. The group formally became the Red Hat Society, with Cooper crowned its “Exalted Queen Mother.”

Since then, the society’s mission to create a network of women approaching 50 years of age and beyond that enjoy each other’s companionship and shared love of having fun has struck a chord with thousands of women. In just five years, more than 40,000 chapters have sprung up worldwide.

The Red Hat Society recently donated Cooper’s original red fedora and a purple-feather boa to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. ”We collect a lot of community-related objects. One of the things that is very interesting to us is that there are very few societies or organizations that actually are being started now that we can monitor and be involved with and know about. Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts have started and they’re proceeding. The YWCA and YMCA are started and proceeding,” says Nancy Davis, curator of the museum’s division of home and community life.”But the Red Hat Society is in its nascent stages. We were interested in following up and finding out a little bit more about this group and understanding the way in which it functions.”

Davis plans on interviewing Sue Ellen Cooper in mid-September so that the museum has an oral history of how she turned this whimsical group of red hatters into a professional organization and how she envisions the Red Hat Society changing in the future. At this point, there is no set plan for displaying the hat and boa, which is fairly typical given that the museum is constantly collecting artifacts.

“We collect contemporary material that speaks to people’s interests today,” says Davis. The red fedora and purple boa join other items, everything from Lance Armstrong Live Strong bracelets to an Escaramuza outfit, that people are compelled to wear because they express an affinity for an organization or cause.

]]> http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/aroundthemall/2010/08/the-american-history-museum-gets-a-red-hat/feed/ 0 http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/aroundthemall/2010/08/now-showing-the-wildest-dream-at-samuel-c-johnson-imax/ http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/aroundthemall/2010/08/now-showing-the-wildest-dream-at-samuel-c-johnson-imax/#comments Tue, 17 Aug 2010 14:06:37 +0000 Megan Gambino http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/aroundthemall/?p=13547

"The Wildest Dream" tells the parallel stories of George Mallory and Sandy Irvine's 1924 pursuit of Everest and Conrad Anker and Leo Houlding's 2007 expedition via the same route. Photo courtesy of Atlantic Productions (2007).

“I know you can achieve your wildest dream,” wrote Ruth Mallory to her husband, mountaineer George Mallory. Mallory’s wildest dream, of course, was to conquer all 29,035 feet of Everest, the world’s tallest mountain. After exploratory expeditions to determine the easiest route, Mallory and his climbing partner Sandy Irvine set out on the first summit attempt in 1924. Unfortunately, the two were last seen alive just 800 feet from the summit.

Mallory and Irvine became legends for their pursuit of Everest, but it was Sir Edmund Hillary, a beekeeper from New Zealand and his Nepalese-born guide Tenzing Norgay, who would make history with the first successful push to the top on May 29, 1953. The feat continues to be the “highest adventure,” as Mallory once called it.

On renowned climber Conrad Anker’s first ascent of Everest in 1999, 75 years after Mallory’s attempt, he actually located the body of George Mallory, clinging to the mountainside with a compound fracture in his right leg. Among the items found on his body was a wristwatch, goggles and an altimeter, but no photograph of his wife, Ruth. It was known that Mallory climbed with a photograph of Ruth that he intended to leave at the summit. So, wondered Anker and his team, had Mallory and Irvine reached the top and tumbled to their deaths during the descent?

If they had, Anker knew that Mallory and Irvine would have had to free climb, or climb using no artificial aids, the Second Step, a 100-foot rock face at an altitude of over 28,000 feet. (The Chinese bolted a ladder to the rock face in 1975, that all climbers attempting this particular route used thereafter.) To prove that it would have been possible, Anker and climbing partner Leo Houlding decided to follow Mallory and Irvine’s 1924 route, free climb and all, in a 2007 summit bid.

“The Wildest Dream,” now playing at the National Museum of Natural History’s Samuel C. Johnson IMAX theater, tells the parallel stories of Mallory and Irvine’s 1924 pursuit and Anker and Houlding’s 2007 expedition. More of a polished documentary than climbing porn, the film includes a surprising amount of surviving footage and photographs from Mallory’s expeditions. At times during Anker and Houlding’s ascent, they used replica 1920s climbing clothing and equipment to get a feel for what it would have been like for Mallory, allowing for some (perhaps overdramatized) reenactments. (Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, the late Natasha Richardson, Hugh Dancy and Alan Rickman lent their narrator-worthy voices.) Especially interesting is the attention the film pays to the climbers’ personal lives and the love triangles that exist between the climbers, their families and the mountain.

Robert Kennicott (1835-1866), explorer and naturalist, in his field clothes. Photo courtesy of Smithsonian Institution Archives.

I was lucky enough to spend a week in Alaska last month, kayaking in Prince William Sound and hiking in the Chugach Mountains. Having planned my trip to entail the most nights camping in the outdoors as possible, I feel as though I had an intimate view of the Last Frontier. (To the outdoor enthusiast, I must say Alaska is no folly.) But it was only upon my return that I discovered that Robert Kennicott, a naturalist and explorer with ties to the Smithsonian, is partly to thank for Alaska’s admission to the United States.

Sandra Spatz Schlachtmeyer, a writer who researched the life and death of Kennicott for her recently published book A Death Decoded: Robert Kennicott and the Alaska Telegraph, quotes an admirer of the explorer who once said, “Robert Kennicott is largely responsible for our purchase of Alaska. Without his knowledge of that mighty region, contained in a score of reports to the Smithsonian, we should never have known enough about Alaska to want it.”

Kennicott made two expeditions to the Yukon, in 1859 and 1865. His missions on the two trips were to assess the economic advantages (harvestable forest, viable shipping harbors, etc.) the U.S. stood to gain from the purchase of Alaska, to collect wildlife and anthropological specimens for the Smithsonian Institution’s collections and to expand the reach of the telegraph. Though Kennicott wrote some of the first accounts of the area and Smithsonian scientists continue to compare current animal specimens to those he contributed, the explorer’s story has been largely lost in time. He died a mysterious death in 1866 at the age of 30 while on his second Alaskan expedition.

Artist Natalie Gallelli created this bronze bust of Kennicott based on a laser scan of the explorer's skull and photographs of him. The bust is on display at the Grove, Kennicott's family home in Glenview, Illinois. Image courtesy of the artist.

Hoping that the Smithsonian would want to take part in demystifying the death of Kennicott, the director of Kennicott’s family home, The Grove, in Glenview, Illinois, contacted Douglas Owsley, a forensic anthropologist at the National Museum of Natural History, to conduct an autopsy in 2001. They were exhuming the naturalist’s casket and thought it a good time to put the mystery to rest. Owsley agreed. In Kennicott’s time, it was rumored that he committed suicide by ingesting a lethal dose of strychnine, a substance used to kill the animal specimens he collected. But the director of the Grove had his doubts.

“We were going to let the remains talk to us,” says Owsley. After what he calls the “Cadillac treatment” of tests, Owsley and his team ultimately ruled that Kennicott died of natural causes, from heart failure. He suspects the explorer had long QT syndrome, a heart rhythm disorder that has caused many athletes to die suddenly during competition. What is particularly interesting about the case, as Owsley will tell you, is how modern forensic science, when combined with century-and-a-half-old documents describing a man’s death and the events leading up to it, can provide an answer to a previously unanswerable question—or, in this case, set the record straight.

“There is not a department in this museum that doesn’t have a Kennicott specimen. He contributed Indian artifacts, bird specimens, frogs…. He’s just an important guy,” explains Owsley. “I like giving him a fair recognition of what happened.”

In her book, Schlachtmeyer alternates between presenting the results of the forensic investigation and reconstructing the story of Kennicott’s telegraph expedition. All proceeds of A Death Decoded, available at the National Museum of Natural History’s store, go directly to the Smithsonian.